On a recent trip to the UK, I had the unexpected pleasure of driving a Kia Sedona 7 passenger minivan with a 2.9 litre, 16 valve turbodiesel engine.

The fit and finish of the van were excellent, as was power, drivability and fuel economy.

While driving the van heavily loaded with 6 passengers and way too much luggage, I was still able to get nearly 40 miles per gallon(!) at steady highway speeds between between 80 and 90 MPH. Not bad at all, considering I was paying about $7 US per gallon of diesel.

Now the question is, with all the recent wailing and nashing of teeth about fuel prices and fuel economy here in the US, why aren't vehicles like this on sale here?

One would hope that such vehicles would become available here sooner rather than later.

Hey Kia, jump in now and you could OWN this market niche for quite some time to come--how about it? I'd by one of these today if I could.

...but NOT through Mercedes. Rather, ZAPcars has become a direct importer for the cars and has the exclusive ten year distribution rights in the US.

Only the gas two door version will be available in the US; you'll have to gray market a diesel model from Canada if you want one, and forget the four door model. The four doors sold so poorly in Europe that Daimler Benz is dropping that model and sticking to the two door model.

Buffett: "Dumb lending always has its consequences. It's like a
disease that doesn't manifest itself for a few weeks, like an epidemic
that doesn't show up until it's too late to stop it Any developer will
build anything he can borrow against. If you look at the 10Ks that are
getting filed [by banks] and compare them just against last year's
10Ks, and look at their balances of 'interest accrued but not paid,'
you'll see some very interesting statistics [implying that many
homeowners are no longer able to service their current debt]."